steam rose from
the horse as it splashed up the puddles. The sidewindows of the hansom
were clogged with a grey-flannel mist.

"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of
the soul!" How the words rang in his ears! His soul, certainly, was
sick to death. Was it true that the senses could cure it? Innocent
blood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there
was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness
was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing
out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.
Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who
had made him a judge over others? He had said things that were
dreadful, horrible, not to be endured.

On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each
step. He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.
The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned
and his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the
horse madly with his stick. The driver laughed and whipped up. He
laughed in answer, and the man was silent.

The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some
sprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist
thickened, he felt afraid.

Then they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, and
he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,
fanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, and far away in
the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed. The horse stumbled in a
rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.

After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over
rough-paven streets. Most of the windows were dark, but now and then
fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind. He
watched them curiously. They moved like monstrous marionettes and made
gestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his
heart. As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from
an open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred
yards. The driver beat at them with his whip.

It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Certainly with
hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped
those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in
them the full expression, as it were, of